Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda spoke with reporters in Lagos on the activities of his administration, his purported ice presidential ambition and national security. EMMANUEL OLADESU was there.

What is your reaction to the rejection of amnesty by the members of the Boko Haram sect?

Amnesty has been given to the real Boko Haram and I believe that they are willing to negotiate with the government. That is my belief. But you know there is the criminal Boko Haram and there is the real Boko Haram. So, the criminal and political Boko Haram are the armed robbers and they are the para-military arm of the politicians. They go about attacking people. The real Boko Haram are willing. But those who are criminal, may be, they are the ones responding that they don’t want amnesty because they are benefiting from it. Some of them are gun runners, some of them are armed robbers. Some of them are doing that on behalf of politicians. So, they just hide under the name Boko Haram to perpetrate evil and criminality. But those who call themselves the actual Boko Haram, there is something agitating their mind, not about killing human beings, probably joblessness in the society. Some of them are university graduates. They finish school and for 15 years, there is no job.

Now that the President has extended that olive branch to them, I will like to strongly believe that they will embrace it. There must be an end. Once they accept, we know we have to face the criminals. Any other person that is doing this and calls himself Boko Haram is an armed robber and a political Boko Haram. So, the definition of Boko, you should try to understand it. May be, from the definition, you try to rationalise. Boko in Hausa is learning, including learning rocket science, chemistry, medicine, biology. That is western in English. But if you learn rocket science in Arabic, is it Boko to you? It is not Boko, it is Arabic. If you learn it in Chinese language, they don’t call it Boko. So, you tend to get confused. A medical doctor who went to learn in Indian Language or Arabic, as we have close to 40 students from Bauchi learning Medicine in Egypt and they about finishing next year. When they come back, they can do a lot of things. So, why should a group come out to say that Boko is Haram. Haram in Hausa is ‘forbidden’. Would you forbid a knowledge of medicine? Would you forbid a knowledge of pharmacy? Would you forbid a knowledge of civil engineering, construction engineering? Would you forbid the knowledge of financial management? o, you sit down and ask yourself. What do they want? Let us know what they want. As far as our thinking is concerned, there is no meaning in what they are saying. There must be something that is agitating them. Is it going to be a doctor by using English, or going to be aeronautic engineer or going to learn rocket science, or sophisticated architecture? And you are using aircraft and pilot. Is it Haram to fly aircraft to Mecca, to Jerusalem? If you don’t have somebody who learns… It is a food for thought for all of us. That is why it makes sense and in fact, we have to commend the President for extending that olive branch to those that we know are Boko haram and of course, they are agitators. But for the criminals, we will fight them; the criminal Boko Haram, the political Boko Haram, the armed robber Boko Haram and the gun runner every where.

It has been alleged that you are nursing the ambition to become the Vice President, thereby displacing Vice President Namadi Sambo is 2015. What is your reaction?

It is more of the figment of imagination of somebody’s else who wants to play me against somebody I look up to as a senior brother. He grew up in Bauchi. I have known him since I was a small boy.He is working with Mr President and he is very loyal to Mr President. He is competent because he is a successful architect. I was in Part One when he was in Part Four.We have close family relations and he takes me like a younger brother. Why should me, Isa Yuguda, blind ambition? That I will not be grateful to God, that I want to be Vice President or President is blind ambition. The Almighty Allah will test me with what is more terrifying to me.

I had a privilege of being an average intelligent human being. I went through school and never failed my exams. I graduated at the age of 20 and at 21, I was doing my NYSC. And I consider myself privileged and have been so favoured by the Almighty God. Sometimes. I even weep in the night when I remember the favours that Allah has done to me. I was one of the bankers that enjoyed the fasted promotion in the banking industry. I have a Bachelors Degree. I went through development bankings, commercial banking, mort age banking to investment banking. I worked with the mortgage bank, development bank. I went to a commercial bank. I ended up as an investment banker. I was the MD of NAL.

So, if I had that privileged from the Almighty Allah; a two-time Managing Director and I was the youngest branch manager in Savannah Bank at the age of 27. I was 32 years when I became the Director of banking Services. I don’t have other diseases in my body than malaria. I am happily marries. My children are all healthy; no deformity, nothing. My wives are also healthy. In fact, right now, I have five graduates with masters degrees and another four are graduating next year. I have the means to send them to school, in spite of the hardship in Nigeria. I am a two-time minister and by the time I joined the cabinet, I was the youngest minister in Obasanjo government in 2000. I never had the ambition of becoming the governor. People were saying, Yuguda, you cannot be a politician because people have a definition of politics that has to do with violence, rancour, arson, mayhem, looting the treasury of government. I am not like that. But today, I am a second term governor. And you are saying that I am begrudging somebody who is the Vice President. What will I get from the office of the Vice President that Allah has not tested me with?

So, you have no such ambition?

I left PDP in 2007 when I had problems with the PDP. people were in support that I should contest for the governor. I was virtually asked by the people of Bauchi to come out and that was confirmed during the election. If I had had the ambition to contest, that revolution that happened in 2007 would not have happened. We had 22 seats in the House of Assembly, out of 30. We have 12 seats in the House of Representatives. We had two senators. It was not because I had money superior experience and intelligence. No. When I was the Managing Director, I was recruiting my classmates. They would sit and I would interview them. Some of them had higher marks than me in school. So, if you say that you will not be grateful to God, you are looking for trouble. So, forget about that ambition. I am a loyal party member. I am loyal to Mr. President. It is God that brought him to power. I support him so that he can lead Nigeria well, together with the Vice President. And power belongs to God. Anybody who is forcing himself will not get there because he is not going to offer anything. The average Nigerian considers political office as an enterprise. They see the governor as an entrepreneur. But there is a difference between entrepreneurship and governance under a political dispensation. A governor is not an entrepreneur. He was elected to serve humanity; to offer an enabling environment so that people can live a good life, safe life; educate people. But an entrepreneur is someone who is after profit. So, if you want to be a businessman, go and be a businessman. But once you are in politics, don’t make politics an enterprise or imagine that you want power for its sake. You cannot be a despot. You cannot play God like some of our governors in the past. If you wear the cap of arrogance, you are comparing yourself with the creator.

The reconciliation embarked upon by the PDP national Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur has not achieved success. Now, the BoT Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, who has disagreed with the chairman, has embarked on another one. How can the crisis in the party be resolved?

In every environment; that is why you have a manager; if there are no problems, there won’t be any manager. That is why you have the chairman of the party. A party is an association of like-minded people. But sometimes, there is the conflict of ideas, thoughts and vision, and in the process, you have misunderstanding. In families, there squabbles and misunderstandings here and there which the neighbours should not hear, but they get to hear. If you are not a PDP member, you are a neighbour. I assure you that what you read in the newspapers is not the actual picture. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees and the National Chairman are elder statesmen. At their age, you don’t expect rancour from them. Baba Anenih is one of the finest men I have ever met in my life, especially in the political landscape. He loves Nigeria with passion. And, he is a man of peace. Take it from me. I know him closely. He has vision for our country. He is interested in helping Nigeria to grow. If you don’t hear his own side and you go and write a story, you won’t get to know. PDP is intact, I assure you. And PDP is going to win 35 out of 36 states in the next elections.

What is your reaction to the crisis rocking the Governors Forum, owing to the formation of the PDP Governors Forum?

It is not a crisis. The formation of association is provided for in the constitution. Today, the opposition parties have formed an association and we call them the APC. If the PDP governors feel that there are certain things that are exclusive to them as the PDP governors, that there is a PDP manifesto and there is the need for them to discuss together to implement the programmes, the manifestos, we should do that. But the Governors Forum is Nigerian Governors Forum. It symbolises the unity of our country. And I had the privilege of going to the meeting of the American Governors Forum. Let me tell you, if the Governors Forum of Nigeria is not like this, then, I will look so cheap.

But how constitutional is the body?

Whether it is constitutional or unconstitutional, it is in our own interest to re-unite and solve our own problems. It there any thing unconstitutional in uniting and discussing our problems?

Is that why they are holding the President to ransom, as alleged by Chief Edwin Clark?

What do you mean? Tell me. Let us exchange ideas. I am in government and it is my responsibility to explain certain things to you. You may agree or not agree with me. I owe it a duty to talk to you because I am paid to talk to you so that you tell the people what the government is doing. If we don’t talk to you, we are not doing our job. You are saying that the Governors’ Forum is holding the President to ransom. I am not bothered by what Baba Edwin Clark has said. I am bothered by what you my younger brothers are saying. That doesn’t exist. We are holding the President to ransom. In the interest of the larger Nigerians, our governors are united. I am closer to Fashola than many of the PDP governors. Of course, there are ACN governors that are closer to PDP governors than their own colleagues. When we get to the Governors ‘ Forum, believe me, in the name of Allah, we discuss Nigeria’s problems, not the President, not even any other person. We speak on issues that will unite us. Any issue that we believe that will create a problem for the economy, we thrash it there before even going for the National Economic Council meeting, and we agree and we tell the Chairman of the Governors’ Forum that this is the consensus view of the governors. All of us, we speak with one voice on all the issues that concern Nigeria.

But what about the crisis between the PDP governors and PDP national chairman?

How can we discuss that at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum? In the Governor’s Forum, we have the ACN, PDP, APGA, ANPP, CPC and Labour Party.

But it has been alleged that when the NGF Chairman, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, speaks the mind of the governors to the President, the President sees him as an antagonist…

No. I am afraid, when you talk on what the governors have decided upon, nobody can object to it. The excess crude account is not recognised by the constitution. Is it a fact or fiction? It s a fact. If we had no reason, if Obasanjo had no reason to establish that account… but it is in the constitution that the President has a leverage for the purpose of good management of the economy of the country, you take certain decisions. And that is subject to the interpretation of the court, to determine if the excess crude account can be factored in for the good management of the economy. These are questions that you need to ask. So, there are things we need to discuss generally. Should we have an excess crude account? The position of the governors is that, look, we don’t have sufficient money to pay salaries. In the budget, you have recurrent and capital expenditure, but you need revenue to fund them. That is why you have a balanced budget, a deficit budget and excess, a surplus budget. Nigeria has not had a surplus budget, except during the Gowon era when there was the remark that we had money, but we didn’t know how to spend it. But that may not have been the true position. may be, the planers then, did not know where to throw the money because we had a lot of infrastructural challenges, bridges to be built, airports to be built. I don’t know whether they had surplus budget then. But all our budgets today, from the federal to the states, are deficit budget. And if you are running a federal budget and you have a deficit, there are three ways of financing a deficit. One is long term borrowing, either from the international capital markets through the raising of bonds. The repayment may take 30 years. But you have to plan very well. If you take this money, we should know precisely where it is going because you are taking the money to fund capital projects. There is nowhere in history an organisation will not be called a failed state is you borrow to finance recurrent expenditure. The second way of funding the budget is from your reserve. You can run down the reserve and fund your deficit. And the last option is printing money. It has negative effects. A state can raise internal and external loan. For instance, I have the sovereign guarantee of the Federal Government, approved by the National Assembly, to take a loan of $ 171 million to build a power plant from China Bank. That facility of $ 171 million will be paid back in the next 25 years at two percent.

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: The Nation Newspaper

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